Posted
by
samzenpus
on Monday November 18, 2013 @04:46PM
from the dark-places dept.

schwit1 writes "As Silk Road emerged from the 'dark-web', other sites have appeared offering services that are frowned upon by most. As Forbes reports, perhaps the most-disturbing is 'The Assassination Market' run by a pseudonymous Kuwabatake Sanjuro. The site, remarkably, is a crowdfunding service that lets anyone anonymously contribute bitcoins towards a bounty on the head of any government official–a kind of Kickstarter for political assassinations. As Forbes reports, NSA Director Alexander and President Obama have a BTC40 bounty (~$24,000) but the highest bounty — perhaps not entirely surprising — is BTC 124.14 (~$75,000) for none other than Ben Bernanke."

That page might be "downright criminal", however, it is not the messenger, it is the message, that counts.That page was put up back in the mid-nineties. HTM code was quite limited. So, it ain't pretty. Neither are those who think that pretty means more than content.BTW, Jim did not put up the page. I did, as the FBI was looking at both Jim and I (investigating), so out of respect for Jim, I put it up while he was in prison. I will keep it up simply to stick it in the face of the feds.There have been over 600 visits to the page, today, mostly because of the link provided here. So, Jim's thoughts from two decades ago seem to still deserve attention.

Yeah this is fairly old news. As far as I'm aware he's been in and out of prison for most of his life since proposing the idea in a fit of extreme libertarianism. Did someone actually go through with it?

You can include practically any terms you want in a swap. I'm sure the lawyers could write up a clause covering 'unplanned change in head of state' to cover an assassination. In fact, it would not surprise me if paper traded by major banks are covered for a sudden change in the Fed's governing body.

<Tinfoil_hat_mode>I would not be surprised if the mortgage backed security market collapse was triggered in part by an 'unfavorable change in the Administration' clause in some contra

...triggered in part by an 'unfavorable change in the Administration' clause in some contracts...

Perhaps not in contracts, but in my time working in finance, I have seen investment strategies planned heavily on the outcome of a single election, considering ramifications for a few years in advance.

While I never saw anything as ridiculous as "sell all of $SECURITY if $CANDIDATE wins", I did encounter plans like "if $CANDIDATE wins, move into $SECURITY until $PROMISE happens, then move out of $LOSER1 or $LOSER2 as appropriate".

This will be pretty good excuse for government thugs to shut down Bitcoin and possibly jail anyone having some in his/her posession. I'm not sure US government thugs did actually conceive such crap but I'm perfectly sure they wouldn't be happier hearing this news.

Bitcoins have experienced drops in value over the course of a single day that are greater than the drop in value of the US dollar over the entire great depression, or its total deflation over the last 100 years. It's not cratering because it's value is effectively a random number and it will keep going up for as long as people are making money from the wild fluctuations in value of an unregulated instrument. When the big speculators cash out and the rest realise that they just own a magic number that no o

I suspect that up to half of them are bogus, and the other half are likely scams. What's left is probably well out of Interpol jurisdiction, let alone that of the FBI (or RCMP, or {insert European national police force here} ), since you're probably going to do it in the borders of some craphole nation already torn asunder by civil war or rebellion.

I don't think it's worse than that, because _if_ someone attempted very few would be harmed. Nor do I think it's the same by any comparative measure. Shouting "Fire" in a theater harms numerous people that are all innocent. In the case of an assassination attempt, most likely the guy who tried to pull the trigger, and perhaps a body guard or two would be hurt and perhaps the politician. An attempted assassination would be one criminal trying to kill another criminal (at least using the sample names in T

In the US, we don't hold the position that just because you are a criminal means you should be killed. In fact, the bill of rights has this peculiar amendment addressing that punishment should not be in excess of the crime committed. It's dictatorships and very anti-freedom hellholes that take the opposite stance.

tl;dr: We put humans life (politician, criminal, or not) on a pedestal. That's part of being a civilized Republic.

That's because he used the handwriting sample to forge contracts with the devil that his agents would then "discover" while searching his enemy's house (the Church had its own extensive judicial system in those days). It's one of those phrases, like "let them eat cake", that has been twisted and distorted from its original context even if it is not wholly apocryphal.

guaranteed to get the whole government in on breaking the Bitcoin chain, as well as getting your ass parked in a Federal prison for a whole lot of years. it's so idiotic that it has to be a government operation to suck in idiots who are looking for jail time.

it seems wrong that such a site with a list of people to execute could exist. it brings the good old lynch mob in to the digital era. fun times. gov officials should not have to operate in fear of assassination.

yet. it is interesting that this is exactly what the us gov is doing with its enemies, building hit lists, ranking them, and executing.

Still wouldn't be as bizarre or outlandish as the time in 2006 that Loyalist Michael Stone attempted to enter the Stormont Assembly in Northern Ireland and assassinate the leaders of Sinn Fein, then claimed that it was "performance art" [bbc.co.uk].

They sort of explain it in the article - the theory is that being the assassin, the act itself has been pre-meditated and you have chosen the date of the murder. You then make a donation to the deadpool, including a hashed version of your date. Once the act is done, you send an email (ideally anonymous) to the site operator with that date inside. The operator performs a hash check on it, and if it matches the data included with your donation, you are most likely the killer.
Or, you're just really good at gu

Seems to me that the creator of that site is shortsighted in how he or she confirms who the assassin is. Namely, that the assassin has to be able to specify the date of death prior to the death. That task if fairly easy for a large number of ways of committing murder. But not always possible. For instance.

1. Poison2. Opportunity - Assassin may be in a position where he or she has multiple chances of contact with the target, but is unable to predict exactly when the contact would be suitable for the actual assassination.

Frankly, the motive of the site creator is rather foolish and childish. Given this paragraph in the original article:

Sanjuro's grisly ambitions go beyond raising the funds to bankroll a few political killings. He believes that if Assassination Market can persist and gain enough users, it will eventually enable the assassinations of enough politicians that no one would dare to hold office. He says he intends Assassination Market to destroy "all governments, everywhere."

it seems to me that Sanjuro is advocating world wide anarchy.

I personally, don't like most governments, however total anarchy is worse than the government we currently have. Frankly, we need something to hold in check the various sociopathic assholes that from time to time attack other people. We need public services such as fire, police, sanitation, sewers, water, etc. There's a lot of infrastructure that frankly needs a government. And even well balanced, social people from time to time will disagree with each other. And said disagreements will from time to time get quite acrimonious. Hence the courts.

Frankly, Sanjuro is either a nutcase, or a honeypot. In either case, it would be best to avoid him.

I would be expecting the NSA to be cracking Bitcoin / TOR as we speak to prosecute people for material support of terrorism.

Cracking bitcoin wouldn't help the feds track down anyone. All it would let them do is print free money, which they can pretty much do anyway. Bitcoin isn't anonymous; it's pseudonymous. The NSA can, with no effort at all, find out your Bitcoin pseudonym. Then they just need to associate your that with your real identity, which they can do via their traditional means of spying on everything that happens.

Not really. If you mine your own coins or get them through secure physical transactions (exchanging USB flash drives) they can be anonymous. Spend them via Tor and on something like this which does not require any of your personal information.

Once you spend them, your transaction (and your pseudonym) become part of the blockchain, and you are no longer anonymous (but are still pseudonymous). That is, anyone who checks the blockchain can find the id of who sent the coins. Anonymity relies on whether you can stop anyone making a connection between your blockchain id (pseudonym) and your actual identity - and you're correct, this is where things like Tor come in.

That might be considered incitement but when monetary rewards come into it then it crosses the line into conspiracy.I doubt any politician or reporter ever said "I will pay someone $X to kill Assange."

He's not a government official. Neat self-exclusion. Also by not offering hits against corporate officers (way more interesting), he prevents a large amount of extrajudicial consequence from hitting him (governments are ostensibly bound by laws, corporations can operate in low-law zones). Perhaps, he figures, focus on proving an MVP [1], and then expand to more profitable markets once he has a reasonable amount of success?

Political violence doesn't work to actually implement social change. It only plays into the hands of authoritarians who rule by fear, in this case fear of you. Kill Bernanke, and they have a great propaganda tool against your cause. And they can replace Bernanke with no trouble. And you haven't actually done anything to harm the people whose interests Bernanke is protecting.

When left-wing terrorism is being carried out in a consistent way in society, it gives the state extra leverage in using political repression against individuals and the left in general.

When by their own actions terrorists serve such ends, they are contributing to the destruction of politics and the closing of various options for the spreading of ideas before they have been fully utilised.

Of course, the state will readily use various repressive methods if it meets any substantial resistance or if it has to handle a social crisis which is creating resistance. Terrorism and guerrilla-ism cannot be attacked just because they produce repression. Even more important is the fact that there is nothing to have made it worthwhile. In the end the guerrillas get wiped out and there is nothing left but repression (and a law and order mentality amongst the people).

Political violence doesn't work to actually implement social change. It only plays into the hands of authoritarians who rule by fear, in this case fear of you. Kill Bernanke, and they have a great propaganda tool against your cause. And they can replace Bernanke with no trouble. And you haven't actually done anything to harm the people whose interests Bernanke is protecting.

I like to think I shouldn't have to say I am not advocating the assassination of Bernanke, but you never know around here...

That said, an assassination of Bernanke might actually raise consciousness of the whole, "Wait, huh, the Federal Reserve is WHAT?!?" issue. It'd dominate news cycles. The assassin's manifesto explaining how "evil" the whole thing is might get poured over on news channels that aren't Fox. Who knows.

Education by Liberals equals stupidity. American Revolution (to name one). Civil War (to name another). If there is such a thing as a "good war", then the ones fought for liberty are the ones worth fighting, lest you end up a slave to a tyrant simply because you believe the lie "Resistance is Futile".

Unless of course you are looking for an individual (or small group) who pulls off a coup of some sort. In which case, you'd be equally wrong. The Assassination of MLK Jr, while it (helped) affected change, it w

I hear what you're saying, but what if, and I'm going out on a limb here, but what if the American government was ultimately behind the 9/11 attacks? If the "authoritarians who rule by fear" are the ones causing the fear, then it's win, win for them.

... only the guy who near single-handedly saved the world economy from total and utter destruction.

(YES, he did have a bit to do with the bubble in the first place... but that was mostly the previous free-market, deregulationist Fed chairman's fault.)

Of course, this assassination nonsense is a scam and a horrific idea. But sweet jesus, these anti-Fed demogogues are such self-denialist losers. Sure, let's go back to the gold standard so we can have a Panic every 15 years. Let's relinquish total control over our money supply and our economy for absolutely no reason. Let's just hand over our nation's economic advantage as the world's go-to currency... great idea......say the same idiots who insisted QE would lead to global hyperinflation (wrong), that the biggest problem our government has is the national debt (wrong), that nations need to tighten their belts during a recession (wrong), that there was no gold bubble (wrong), and that nothing bad would ever happen if we default... How many times do these people have to be proven wrong, over and over?

But I guess it makes sense that the ultra-paranoid sorts of people who would be attracted to the idea of bitcoin are the same ones who would hold some kind of insane vendetta against the Fed, totally missing the mark on who REALLY to blame for the near collapse and meltdown of western civilization.

I wonder if this isn't an operation to sour the public on Bitcoin? I mean, not that it needs much to sour the folks here on Slashdot, but the common Joe/Jane on the street might need some Emmanuel Goldsteins to scream at for two minutes.

And with all the revelations of Snowden and Wikileaks, calling someone a "tinfoil hatter" has lost most of it's sting.

For every assassination bounty hosted they should also host a corresponding anti-assassination bounty. The assassin would be paid the net pro-assassination value, that is, the difference between the two bounties, and the bounty hosting site would keep the remainder. For opposing interests of equal magnitude in a bidding war this would be hugely profitable for the bounty hosting site and also result in nobody actually getting assassinated. It would also be more equitable because it represents the opinions of both pro-assassination and anti-assassination sides, not just the pro-assassination side.

Though seriously, the entire subject is revolting. Almost every American, love Obama or hate Obama, love Bush or hate Bush, agrees that they do not want their President to be assassinated. Despite disagreements in American politics, there are essential fundamental core values which unite us all, and that we do not assassinate our leaders is one of them.

1) Create anonymous crowd funding website for dodgy activity people won't want to own up to (out of fear, like drug or murder prosecution).2) Have people give you money.3) Shut down site and pocket money....Profit!

The last few chumps who took shots at US Presidents all lived to talk about it. The Secret Service is a law enforcement organization, not an execution squad, they're under the same obligation as any other LEO to apprehend a suspect alive when possible. Of course, Bitcoin probably doesn't go very far at the Terre Haute prison commissary.....

The last few chumps who took shots at US Presidents all lived to talk about it.

Every successful US presidential assassination has resulted in the assassin's death:Lincoln: The assassin, John Wilkes Booth, was tracked down by Union soldiers and killed.Garfield: The assassin, Charles Guiteau, was executed by hanging.McKinley: The assassin, Leon Czolgosz, was executed by electric chair.Kennedy: The assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald*, was shot in the Dallas Police Headquarters.

*There are plenty of conspiracy theorists that disagree with this. However, if you're in the "he didn't act alone," but that he was the shooter, he was still killed. If you believe he wasn't the shooter, then whoever was remains unknown and wouldn't have the opportunity to collect their bounty.

Of course, if you do it in another country you might have a chance at survival. For example, the dude who threw a grenade at GWB in the country of Georgia received a life sentence because Georgia (the country) has abolished the death penalty, even though he did kill a Georgian high ranking agent when being apprehended. Of course, if he had been successful the US may have intervened and killed the guy. Either way, at best he would have had to enjoy his bitcoins from a Georgian prison.

So how could you get away with surviving it, yet be known to have done it so you can collect your bitcoins?

Actually by killing someone important you'd probably be more likely to live these days. They'd want to know if you were working alone, so you'd end up in some black site across the globe being tortured.

After that was over they might kill you, or more likely make a public example out of you.

But compared to these people, the worst in American government are like boy scouts

Not really. One example you gave was "anyone from a Mexican drug cartel". But mexican drug cartels are only dangerous because drugs are illegal. Those who vote to keep drugs illegal are just as responsible for those deaths as the cartels are. Further, they're responsible for every death caused by impure drugs, or drugs of unknown concentration.

Not only that, but even if we take the deaths and horrors the US government is directly responsible for, by actions which are violent in nature (so I'm excluding both inaction and disastrous economic measures, for the purposes of this comparion). they beat the mexican cartels pretty easily. Look at the number of dead and wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan. Look at the US prision system: almost 1% of its population is behind bars - that's more than 2 million people. Working people, producing armaments and other

Straw man*. Just because I said the US goverment is arguably worse does not mean I'm saying other criminals are innocent or any less bad. This isn't a sports match, one "side" doesn't have to "win". And we'll have to agree to disagree on the whole "Afghanistan was necessary" thing and on the classification of what the American military did. Their actions weren't only "criminal negligence", they were straight up war crimes by definition.

*That would be misrepresenting some else's argument, like you did to min